Antone’s Celebrates 50th Anniversary With Extensive Box Set

Austin’s bastion of the blues, Antone’s is celebrating five decades of iconic players and performances with Antone’s: 50 Years Of The Blues, a five-disc, 41-track package set for release on Aug. 22 via New West Records.

Founded in 1975 by the late Clifford Antone, the venue has played host to the Mount Rushmore of blues legends including B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, Ray Charles and James Brown. Antone’s has also helped shape the career of renowned talents such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Bob Schneider while nurturing a new generation of trailblazing Austin artists, including Antone’s co-owner Gary Clark Jr.

“It is a legacy,” offers Clark, a three-time Grammy winning blues/rock innovator in a January Pollstar interview. “Antone’s ‘Home of the Blues’ is perfect because it felt like we were at home – a community of musicians that were just as appreciative as the listeners.”

The venerated club is feting its milestone anniversary throughout 2025 with an impressive lineup of events in partnership with New York’s Lincoln Center, SXSW and the Austin Blues Festival; historical tributes including the opening of a permanent blues museum at the club; the March opening of a satellite Antone’s location in Austin-Bergstrom International Airport; and the anticipated box set of long-lost and new material in collaboration with New West.

The collection includes unseen photographs; an updated hardcover edition of Picture the Blues by Antone’s sister and club co-owner Susan Antone; a new Antone’s history written by notable Texas music historian Joe Nick Patoski; and a special bonus 45 featuring Los Lobos’ new studio recording of the Chicago blues classic “Three Hundred Pounds Of Joy,” which was written by Willie Dixon and made famous by Howlin’ Wolf.

Widely known as a SoCal band, Los Lobos have a strong connection to Antone’s, thanks to an early career encounter.

“Clifford Antone rescued us in 1983 when we found ourselves kicked off a tour and stranded in McAllen, TX with no money to get home to LA,” recalls Steve Berlin of Los Lobos in a release. “He said get to Austin somehow, and he’d pay us $100 a man per night to open for a week of shows at Antone’s. That was just enough to make it home, so it is in some very small measure our way of saying ‘Thanks for saving our asses’ to do this song for him and his great club.”

The box set features three distinct full-length albums – each capturing a unique aspect of the club’s history and cultural impact on Austin’s music scene.

The Last Real Texas Blues Album features newly recorded material from artists integral to the history of Antone’s, including Jimmie Vaughan, who recently hosted a Kerr County flood relief benefit at Antone’s. The collection also includes The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Charlie Sexton, Ruthie Foster, Bobby Rush, C.J. Chenier (son of Clifton, “King Of Zydeco”) and John Primer, longtime guitarist/bandleader for Muddy Waters.

Tell Me One More Time is a collection of long-lost cuts from Antone’s Records, the club’s in-house label and perhaps the leading promoter of female-fronted blues including Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli, Lavelle White, Sue Foley and Barbara Lynn.

We Went Live In ’75 offers rare live recordings from throughout the club’s history, ranging from Buddy Guy and Otis Rush to a previously unreleased – and recently discovered – board recording of “Catfish Blues” performed by Clark in 2004 when he was an unsigned 20-year-old.  

“I was a kid sitting around playing my guitar with no direction,” offers Clark, who discovered Antone’s while in high school. “I already loved to play, but when I jumped onstage at Antone’s, I felt like I was part of something important…It changed the way I thought about life and ended my search for acceptance, because I knew this was what I was supposed to do.” 

Antone’s: 50 Years of the Blues track list:

The Last Real Texas Blues Album

1. Going Down – Bobby Rush & Jimmie Vaughan
2. Reconsider Baby – Benny Turner feat. Derek O’Brien
3. Flip, Flop And Fly – Jivin’ Gene feat. Charlie Sexton
4. You’ll Lose A Good Thing – Kam Franklin
5. If You Change Your Mind – Lil’ Ed Williams
6. Talkin’ ‘Bout My Friends – Kim Wilson & The Fabulous Thunderbirds
7. Those Lonely, Lonely Nights – McKinley James
8. The Sky Is Crying – Lurrie Bell feat. Joe Sublett
9. Lead Me On – Ruthie Foster
10. Bad Boy – Doyle Bramhall II
11. Just Like A Bird Without A Feather – Big Bill Morganfield
12. Honest I Do – John Primer
13. Lookin’ Good – Eve Monsees feat. Lurrie Bell & Billy Gibbons
14. The Things That I Used To Do – Lynn August feat. Marcia Ball
15. Willie The Wimp – C.J. Chenier
16. You Got Me Where You Want Me – Sue Foley
17. If (I Could Be With You) – Kam Franklin
18. Message From Miss Lavelle – Lavelle White feat. Derek O’Brien & Marcia Ball

 Bonus 45 

1. Three Hundred Pounds Of Joy – Los Lobos

Tell Me One More Time

1. Sugar Coated Love – Lou Ann Barton
2. I’m So Glad – Snooky Pryor
3. It Hurts Me, Too – Angela Strehli Band
4. No Special Rider – Lazy Lester
5. You’re Gonna Make Me Cry – Lavelle White
6. I Won’t Cry – Doug Sahm
7. A Fool in Love – Marcia Ball, Lou Ann Barton, Angela Strehli
8. Too Sorry – Doyle Bramhall
9. Gone Blind – Sue Foley
10. Hear From My Daddy – Barbara Lynn
11. Don’t Touch Me – Kim Wilson
12. Going Down Slow – Pinetop Perkins

We Went Live In ‘75

1. Chicken Shack / Sugar Bear Intro (Live) – Pinetop Perkins
2. Walking By Myself (Live) – Jimmy Rogers
3. Built Up From The Ground (Live) – Sunnyland Slim
4. Double Trouble (Live) – Otis Rush
5. Bigtown Playboy (Live) – Eddie Taylor
6. Look On Yonder’s Wall (Live) – Buddy Guy
7. What It Takes To Get A Good Woman (Live) – Angela Strehli
8. Cold Cold Feeling (Live) – Albert Collins
9. Catfish Blues (Live) – Gary Clark Jr.
10. Midnight Creeper (Live) – James Cotton